


Cruelty Without Beauty

by giveb



Category: At Dead Of Night (Video Game)
Genre: POV Second Person, Scene Rewrite, Short Chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:35:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28787298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giveb/pseuds/giveb
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	1. Sensation Nation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eldritchforesthorror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchforesthorror/gifts).



It’s a cascade of mad-hatter-mercury or one sweetly-spun silver tongue to tin-ears that brings you to yourself. The smelling-salts that save you from the previous spaced-out fog are the deathful-airs and breathy-words of this clown-clerk. Where’s your ticket and- Wait, this ain’t no circus, hot dog! Talk about double talent then, accountant-accounting for the day, and balloon animal zookeeper at the graveyard-shift night! The thought of what pretty-cryptic & uncanny characters would be his favorite-fauna and the tied-knot tally of blown-up tigers-and-tarantulas tip-toe about like sheep counted before sleep while you eye-out a double-take of the scarlet-scene before you.  
“...saying things that shouldn’t be said and that sorta thing. It’s quite popular with students.” If it wasn’t for the countertop centered between you two, he would’ve tripped-off the motion-sensors and broken the rules of proxemics with all this lot-of-leaning in, like you’re a carrot dangling from the stick. Wouldn’t this saloon-or-salesmen-staring be better suited for living-statue-seasons? Even though the dusk-and-dimness obscures it, his minuscule-microexpressions remind you of one camera-lense readjusting, only missing the number of small-clicks calculating for exposure before flashing-off. If an elevator-pitch already has him this charged-up, would this mean there’s charm to be found in this quaint-little performance?  
It’s one chin-stroking gesture from yourself, rolling-eyes to break the contact, an itty-bitty oblivious of earlier words and former conclusions about creepiness made, “Hmmmm… You know what? I’d like to take you up on that, pretty-please.”  
But before his reaction’s recorded, the thwacking of the rain and a particularly mighty-thump outside gets you to lickity-split-look over your shoulder, the pounding-and-slamming on glass sounding stronger than a thunderbolt, ‘cept the flash-of-light had-long-since passed, revealing that the culprit for the clatter was another bucket’s-worth of water against the windows and walls. There’s almost the illusion of a waterfall’s glimmer and ripples casting-over the front-doors, shifting the light-sources for the second. When it comes to the current ill-fated forecast and whiplash-weather, wouldn’t there have been a leak or two in our tents, or some caboose-camper or pickup truck’s headlights hampering our z’s, and what harm could vaudeville do and this experience be? This string-of-standup wouldn’t make you suffocate-away from laughing your lungs out like donkeys eating figs, and if anything does seem too seedy, this shrimp has to answer to five-pairs of fists. Hi-yah! It’s not karate yet, but just the one-o-one self-defense class you took all-together. Doesn’t Katie faint at the sight of blood though?  
Puzzling enough though, there’re two voices replying to you. The pen-pusher, Jimmy, utters out, “Ah, that’s very wonderful, just music to my ears!”  
The blur-of-motion in the corner of your eye gets you to turn back towards the receptionist, and it’s already an acting-prowess exercise with how his reaction is: both his head-tilt and hands shake-and-buzz, and while you’ve been wide-eyed this entire time, his affect for-once matches yours of sudden-bewilderment. From what used to be nothing-more than the simplest of desk-lamps spangles into a plage-spotlight square-set and spot-on his smile and apparent-tearfulness. What’s the big-deal over this amusement? Does he need help saving his legacy, livestreaming this for an archive, and are you to be his scribe?  
At that same-moment though, there’s this undertone of crackling, like hickory or redgum firewood under something spit-roasting, of static voices sputtering, “Nooo!”  
You raise an eyebrow and glance at wherever that second-source could have come from. “Yeah, thanks for inviting me. What was that though?” It couldn’t have been the record spinning in the background, since they wouldn’t have kept any scream or accident like that on their final-copy, right? Wasn’t it closer to the countertop? You wonder aloud, “Are you a ventriloquist?”  
He offers up a devilish grin, and speaks quickly, “No, but I do have my way with pulling the strings of other puppets though. What you heard though… might have been this!” There’s the quick-shuffle of a sheet or two, and clicking of ledger-clipboards against one another, and revealed under the higgledy-piggledy of papers is the hodgepodge-hybrid between radios and radiation-detectors, a plain-planch peg-board with all manner of pell-mell-pewter-pieces, pitch-pipes, and planchet peppered throughout, such as a nameplate reading “Ghost & Spirit Voice Receiver.”  



	2. Sensation Nation (Second Half)

Your shrug-off sets-sail alongside the sea-salt sandstorm, “Oh wait-a-minute, I heard about the haunted-lighthouse tours around here? Are you one of the volunteer-docents for those spooky-sites, with a prop like that?” You twiddle your thumbs, which the fleshier-parts of your palm register as cold as a case of reynaud-syndrome, shift your cumbersome weight between each locked-up leg, and tug forward at your backpack’s shoulder-digging straps. Errr, was it just the seabreeze-wind, or is the hair from the nape of your neck to your chinny-chin-chin standing up right now?  
It must be the smile-olympics right-now, since his grin is going for gold while he divulges. “Is the sky grey, pitch-black right now? Then yes-indeed, Miss Maya!”  
Huh. That’s the tie-in truth with the midnight and the witching-hour start? Nah, that’s not-likely the reason why; It’s more-to-do-with the odd-arrival-hours and last-chance when all-other places are booked-backed up. There isn’t an airport around these parts, and that final-ferry was at six, seven-ish or so. You hope that there’ll still be multiple launch-times, get-goes and start-offs for the trip back, so the whole shuttle doesn’t scupper, scuttle, capsize and have the seacocks left open on the open-water.  
You’re rubbing your hands together for friction, or attempting to smooth out your visible goosebumps or frisson while you rack your wrinkles-fissures-sulci-gyri for something to say. Did those phantasms follow him back home, perched like a parrot on one’s shoulder?  
“It’s a boo-tiful business… really good for the economy?” you flounder out.  
If it’s only crews of two’s and three’s, there really can’t be too-many freak-accidents and fatalities.  
Jimmy’s surely-certainly in his element, with open palms and staring unwavering, “And I’ve known their stories like the back of my hands for decades! Thank you for the starting-suggestion for my stellar spiels! I might-just open with that.”  
He’s a man of many nightmares & terrifying talents then, scared off more socks than there are sockeye salmon in the pacific.  
It could be one story to share once aloud you arrive on site. In the midst-and-middle of the opening-act’s tuning-scales and the audio technicians venturing into the venue with one “testing-testing-1-2-3”, you could whisper over to a groupie within reach about finding the strangest strand of stand-up yesterday, and those neo-hippy-zippy types from the concert might get the rubber-stamp-right to call in closure for those apparitions. They’d bring in their sage and sweet-scents, buds and earbuds, and gather the titular eleventy for the final wave-away and hereafter conference, or at the very-least bring in dozens of dimes and rounds of revenue.  
It’s a curt nod or curtsy to wrap up everything. “Okay, I’ll return and we will all leave our keys back-here come morning. I’ll see you soon.”  
In response, Jimmy closes the encounter with a hat-tip. “Toodaloo, ‘till we meet again!”  


Before you can say knife, the elevator door’s buzz is like an oven timer’s alarm to separate moments, and the gap-bridger for the here and now. There’s no security camera. What’s that flick again, about that stately and statuesque elevator serviceman… The Lift? Isn’t the villain and extraterrestrial-terror something blob-and-slime for its ball-and-chain? Wasn’t it’s rampage caused by a thunderstroke and levin, sort-of matching tonight’s turbulence? It’s horrifying crispy-human-cook-off might be up there in the list of worst-ways to go. 

There’s always the alternative of trekking up the ascent, however, if there’s plush carpeting, wouldn’t that be the last-straw for your sleepiness? You’re no stranger to straight napping on the stairway-slopes, waking up with a cricked-crooked neck after the forty-winks. You’ve nodded-off in all manner of crevices and corners throughout midterms and dead-as-hell week, underneath tables, backseats of cars, bathroom stalls, a rando’s shoulder while riding the tube, passing-out behind halloween decorations or bushes at sorority parties. While you’re on that topic, note to self: hang up your rolled-up raincoat before calling it quits. If you’ve got this luxury of a quilt and counterpane, why would you want to spoil it with the bad-news that there’s now a mildewy portmanteau.

The elevator’s ding snaps you back. Was there a birthday-party in this floor’s lobby? I guess you were right on something, as you nudge away the inflatables blocking your path. One point for this hotel and one point for yourself is the score. Compared to any moaning-and-groaning, creaking of floorboards or squeaking of your soaked-sneakers, the door opens surprisingly quietly after you knock. The chorus you’ve grown with and learned-to-love belts out, “Maya!”


End file.
